Sandor Racz, Hungarian labor activist during anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, dies at 80

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Sandor Racz, a labor activist and leading figure during Hungary's anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, has died. He was 80.

The World Federation of Hungarians, of which Racz was honorary president, confirmed that he died Tuesday while receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness at the National Institute of Oncology in Budapest.

The 1956 uprising was crushed by the Soviet army in November of that year. But as president of the Budapest central workers' council, Racz and other labor leaders pressed ahead with the objectives of the movement.

Racz, then a 23-year-old a tool maker at an electronics factory, was arrested on Dec. 11, 1956, as workers held their second nationwide strike.

He was sentenced to life in prison in 1958 but released under a 1963 general amnesty.